Bubkes: Yiddish and mid-20th-century New York-ese for the seemingly inconsequential. Bubkes.Org: Images and observations by Stephen Lewis

The Mosque of Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa, Istanbul: The Creation of Space, Floor-Level Views, and Architecture Through a Normal Focal-Length Lens

The Mosque of Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa, Istanbul (view towards minber). +/-2000. The figure at prayer at the lower left and the figure seated at center provide scale. (Rolleiflex Tessar 3.5, 400ASA B/W negative, scan of print). Click on image to enlarge.

Sometimes, I try to picture the growth of cities and the evolution of architectural styles as short stop-motion films or animations that capture at high-speed centuries of morphological change as unbroken flows rather than as fixed “chapters.” Envisioning in this manner helps me extrapolate and better understand processes and trends.

Creation of Space

In terms of Islamic architecture (or, more precisely, three-quarters of a millennium of Ottoman tradition and its immediate predecessors, the facets of Islamic architecture with which I am most familiar) my animated imaginings reveal a striving for larger, more open and unobstructed interior space and, finally, for the transcendence of enclosure itself. As to how to visual this in terms of design and technique, imagine a transition from flat-roofed or multi-domed structures supported by rows and rows of interior columns and/or piers to dome-on-cube structures made larger and larger in footprint, height, and volume by the addition of cornices, intermediate drums, and half- and quarter-domes to support central domes of greater and greater diameter, and to distribute their weight further and further outwards and downwards. At the same time, imagine interiors becoming more and more open, with supporting columns and piers banished first to the sides of structures and later integrated into interior and exterior walls. Finally, imagine walls themselves being perforated and made gossamer by rows upon rows of windows. The total effect: an illusion of the elimination of enclosure — of architecture itself, thus — and a metaphorical return to the original Muslim place of prayer, the open-air courtyard in the home of the prophet and founder of Islam.

A Floor-Level View

The photo above shows a late example of an open and soaring interior and walls made lace-like by fenestration: the Mosque of Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa (1734) in the Haseki quarter of Istanbul.

The photo was taken with a Rolleiflex Tessar 75mm f3.5 mounted on a small pocket tripod with ball-head. At the time, I was experimenting with the use of normal focal-length rather that ultra-wide angle lenses to capture interior space. The challenge thereof was to select and portray a “slice” of interior that would conjure up the entire space; the benefit was the preservation of natural perspective. The use of a pocket tripod not only made me less obtrusive but also enabled portrayal of the mosque from near-floor level, the height from which the mosque is viewed at during prayer. Many years ago, a well-known European scholar of Ottoman history and architecture (Machiel Kiel) taught me the value of viewing mosque interiors as they were meant to be viewed, i.e. leisurely and contemplatively while sitting cross-legged on carpeted floors.